Edinburgh Festival Fireworks display will not take place this year

By Angie Brown, BBC Scotland, Edinburgh and East reporter

The annual fireworks display which traditionally signals the end of the Edinburgh International Festival will not take place this year.

The 45-minute show from Edinburgh Castle, which began in 1982, usually attracts more than 250,000 spectators. The display did not take place in 2020 or 2021 due to Covid restrictions. Organisers said the pandemic had also led to the cancellation of the fireworks this year, which is the 75th anniversary of the festival.

They said that at the time a decision was due to be made on going ahead with such a big event event, they were not confident it could be delivered within the guidance at the time.

A spokeswoman for the Edinburgh International Festival said: “We won’t be staging the fireworks this year due to planning times coming out of the pandemic.

“However, we will still have a large-scale free event in Princes Street Gardens.”

A live performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Edinburgh Playhouse will be streamed to the Ross Bandstand on Saturday 27 August.

The fireworks have been described as one of the biggest pyrotechnic shows on earth. People buy tickets to watch the event from Princes Street Gardens, which sits under Edinburgh Castle. Huge crowds also watch from Princes Street, which is not ticketed, and other vantage points across the city.

The fireworks usually accompany a live performance from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a bandstand in Princes Street Gardens, which is aired on radio for people outside the gardens to hear.

There are usually about 400,000 fireworks in the display, using four tonnes of explosives synchronised to music from the orchestra.

Source: bbc.com